But, these classes are also part of the CAREER-TECH ED program. So while being creative and expressing themselves, students are learning the skills needed for the 21st century:

COMMUNICATION

PROBLEM SOLVING

COLLABORATION WITH TEAMMATES

LEADERSHIP

MEETING REAL-WORLD DEADLINES

Workers and lifelong learners in the 21st century need to be able to communicate information, ideas, and opinions in a variety of media. They need to be savvy consumers and skilled producers of media.

ONE OF THE MOST IN-DEMAND COLLEGE MAJORS IS COMMUNICATIONS & MARKETING

IT'S NOT ABOUT WHICH KEYS TO CLICK ON A COMPUTER KEYBOARD! I can't teach you how to use the software you'll need for your job ten years from now. But I can teach you how to approach computer applications, how to learn what you need to know, and how to solve problems and keep moving forward.

"The time has come when we must teach our children what no one knew yesterday, and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet."
—Margaret Mead

THE CLASSES/THE PATHWAY

COMPUTER ART 1-2 introduces students to graphic design with Photoshop and animations with Flash. Each time the class learns a new skill, everyone does an exercise to practice that skill, and then each student does a creative project where they utilize the skill.

MEDIA ARTS PATHWAY: Students can begin in 10th or 11th grade. Media Arts has always had a wide variety of students, but there's special appeal to kinesthetic learners – students who enjoy making things. This program is project-based and portfolio-based.

Year One: DIGITAL COMMUNICATION FOR POINT OF VIEW: .The focus is on persuasive communication as students take on design challenges in Photoshop, Flash and Web Production. At the end of the year, students will have a linked, web-based portfolio showing samples of their work, along with a resume and written reflections on their work.

Year Two: POINT OF VIEW: VIDEO PRODUCTION FOR PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION: Students work on eight different videos in the course of fall semester. Most of the time, a new video is due every week or every second week. I don't expect perfection. In fact, I expect student teams will make a lot of errors along the way. But you'll learn from those errors, and by the time you get to spring semester you'll be ready to take on more ambitious video projects.

Year Three: POINT OF VIEW: ADVANCED VIDEO PRODUCTION: Students returning for a third year with the Media Arts Pathway are expected to take leadership in planning large-scale ambitious short videos. They will also be given more challenging assignments – edit debate footage to show intentional bias, or create a video based on pages from a novel.

—Mr. Machtay

Henry Machtay earned an MFA from the University of Southern California Film School. He worked as a filmmaker, writer, editor, desktop publisher, and finally as a web designer/producer before a mid-life series of circumstances dropped him into a teaching career.

His first day in a classroom was September 11, 2001, as a substitute covering for a computer teacher at Galileo. That computer teacher never returned. Mr. Machtay never left, and two years later he became a credentialed teacher planning the launch of the Academy of Information Technology at Galileo. In 2008, Media Arts split off and became its own pathway.

Mr. Machtay has credentials in Art and in Career-Tech Ed (Arts & Media). He is an Adobe Lead Educator, Adobe Photoshop Certified, has been an IISME Fellow, wrote the first UC-accepted curriculum for web design as an art class as well as contributing to the recently-accepted UCCI "Depth of Field," a 12th grade class combining Media Arts and English Literature. His curriculum for POV: Video Production for Persuasive Communication was recently accepted by UC A-G as an Art class and also a Career-Tech Ed class.